Arcadia Unified School District hires four new principals. They are Tom Bruce (First Avenue Middle School), Teresa Oakdale (Holly Avenue Elementary School), Ben Acker (Foothills Middle School), and Lauren Leahy (Hugo Reid Elementary School). The new hires come soon after David Vannasdall became the district superintendent in May.
Arcadia Unified 'lip-dubs spirit of its middle schools. Some 2,200 Arcadia Unified School District middle school students and adults are featured in a four minute YouTube video featuring Jason Derulo's "Undefeated," to show their school spirit and pride. A lip-dub video is music played over a lip-sync video, filmed in one continuous shot.
Holy Angels Elementary School was closed yesterday because its head pastor, Reverend Michael Evans, has a sister named Teresa Evans, who is a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sergeant, named by suspected killer Christopher Dorner (ex-LAPD), in his 11,000 word manifesto posted on Facebook last week. Dorner is suspected in the shooting deaths of three people--Monica Quan, daughter of Dorner's attorney during his review hearing, Quan's fiance, and a Riverside police officer. Dorner was terminated from LAPD and is believed to be on a killing rampage. Holy Angels School hopes to open tomorrow or Thursday. See also Arcadia Weekly, February 14, 2013.
Leon Logothetis, star of Netflix show “The Kindness Diaries” spoke at Holy Angels School in Arcadia on April 12. He said, “Kindness is literally the coolest thing, the most epic thing you can do. How you show up to the world matters. The most beautiful way to make a person feel that they matter is to be kind. And kindness is free.”
2011 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores show a majority of area schools are progressing. California's STAR program assesses public school students' knowledge of the math, English and science in grades 2 through 11. At Arcadia Unified School District, these are the percentage of students who scored proficient or advanced in core subjects: English-Language Arts 83.9%; History 76%; Mathematics 82.4%; Science 84.7%; Science end of course 80.4%. STAR scores from other area schools are given.
Denny's Restaurant at Huntington Drive and Santa Anita Avenue in Arcadia hosts a monthly "Carcadia" car show. Any car enthusiast is welcome to show his/her car. The event was founded by Scott Hettrick and Glenn Oyoung.
Eight school districts in the West San Gabriel Valley, including Arcadia Unified School District, showed year-to-year increases in Academic Performance Index (API) scores. The API measures student proficiency in English and math.
Arcadia, Alhambra, Monrovia, Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Gabriel, San Marino and Temple City public schools all showed improvement on California state API testing that measures English and math performance. Duarte Unified showed a drop from the previous year.